Eric Holt-Gimenez interview--The Gates Foundation and the New Green Revolution for Africa.
In part of a Good Politics Radio series entitled Replenishing the Breadbasket: Food and Philanthropy, Eric Holt-Gimenez explains how the Gates Foundations $300 million effort to aid African agriculture does little to change the structural problems that have led to the food crisis and is instead repeating the failed policies of the first green revolution.
The Food Crisis Bites Back
As depicted by agribusinesses like Monsanto, Cargill, and BP the food crisis is a problem of supply and demand, and can be resolved by increased/efficient agricultural production. Groups like Via Campesino say this is short-sighted and corrosive to local farmers and food sovereignty. They want to see more equitable long-term solutions such as fair trade and sustainable agriculture.
Food Crisis, Which Crisis?
Our crisis or theirs? The battle over the world's food supply relocates to Rome
By Sam Urquhart for GNN
June 2, 2008
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is currently holding an emergency summit in Rome that will be focusing on the current global food crisis, but rejuvenating and protecting agriculturalists does not seem to be on the agenda.
In the past couple of months the attention of the world has been directed at the issue of food availability and production, but poor people across the world have felt its effects for years.
Solving the food crisis: the causes and the solutions
On-line Opinion, Australia's e-journal of social and political debate
June 2, 2008
By Eric Holt-Gimenez and Loren Peabody
Headlines in recent weeks are ablaze with reports of food riots. Seemingly overnight, the world went from cheap food and generous surpluses to food prices spiking 80 per cent and countries banning exports of food in an attempt to stave off shortages. Without massive, immediate injections of food aid, 100 million more people in the Global South are poised to join the swelling ranks of the world’s hungry. This is a very curious prospect for a food system that just registered its largest grain harvest ever.
Food First Associate, Raj Patel testified as the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on Food Crisis
Leading Experts to Testify Before House Financial Services Committee on Global Food Crisis
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/hr051408.shtml